The Eric Garner Decision Confirms a Holiday of Horrors. 'Tis the Season for More Protest, Not Less

Enough with the indecent, pornographic juxtaposition of a holiday season – that everything’s going to be OK – against the bleak reality of our current American nightmare – that nothing really is, especially if you’re a person of color. (Photo: Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters)

On Wednesday evening in New York City, as dusk fell into night, another grand jury failed to indict another police officer for killing another unarmed black man in America – this one a bona-fide homicide caught on camera. On Wednesday night in New York City, we protest. And then they planned in this same town – on this, the same night in America when the law continued to allow cops to kill black men – to light the most famous Christmas tree in the country.

Some will say protesters need to be peaceful, to be respectful. They will say this after Daniel Pantaleo, the police officer who choked Eric Garner to death with a forbidden chokehold, walks free – news that is not any more surprising than the news that Darren Wilson was not indicted for the shooting death of Mike Brown.

And, yes, the protesters should be peaceful – but we need to be disruptive. Because the same structural racism exists in New York City that does in Ferguson, as it does everywhere in the United States. As President Obama said on Wednesday night: “This is an American problem.” And no holiday lights should be lit while the light of justice is snuffed out for so many.

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Further

Lookit These Kids Redux: Over 200 kids in Pennsylvania who defied their school's ban on joining last week's nationwide walkout transformed their ostensible punishment into Civil Disobedience 101 by turning their detention into a silent, moving sit-in. With the community offering support - and pizza - the #Pennridge 225 linked arms, wore the names of Parkland victims and declared the consequences of their actions "a badge of honor" to show "we’ll stand up for what is right."